Lithuania and Latvia, on the border with Belarus, dozens of people rejected and left in the woods: many amputations due to exposure

ROME – In Lithuania and Latvia, on the border with Belarus, dozens of people seeking safety in the European Union are turned away and left in the woods for several weeks. That’s what it says Doctors Without Borders (MSF) which calls on the Lithuanian and Latvian authorities to stop all push-backs at the borders, which cause trauma and serious injuries to people in transit, denying them the right to seek safety.

One boy had his foot amputated. “Fourteen people, including some children, have been hospitalized in recent weeks. Several people have had their limbs amputated and some are waiting to hear if they will have to be amputated. All of this is avoidable and totally unacceptable. People will die if the situation doesn’t change,” says Georgina Brown, MSF project coordinator in Lithuania and Latvia. “A boy told me he spent a week in the woods. When the border police caught him, he felt such a strong pain in his feet that he cried. He showed the condition of his feet to the police, but they still rejected him and he had to have an amputation.”

The 2021 rejections toll: 27 dead. Over the past year, thousands of people from countries including Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Cameroon and Afghanistan have attempted to cross the border from Belarus into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, and the governments of these three countries have restricted access borders and declared a state of emergency. These pushbacks are becoming a recurring practice, the border police in Lithuania and Latvia push people back leaving them stranded in the woods without shelter or sufficient food and water. Last winter, at least 27 people died at the borders of these countries but the real number could be higher.

Denied the possibility of applying for asylum. The continuous pushbacks deny migrants their fundamental rights such as the request for asylum or access to medical care. MSF is shocked by this recurring practice, considering that the cold temperatures in Lithuania and Latvia have serious consequences, such as frostbite and hypothermia. Despite the difficult conditions of the winter season, pushbacks continue on a daily basis, with no respect for the human dignity and rights of these people. MSF calls on the Lithuanian and Latvian authorities to end these hostile policies that deliberately put people seeking safety at risk and further increase their suffering.